Amazon.com: Filmmaker Hal Hartley is something of an acquired taste. But if you can get on his oddball, deadpan wavelength, you can't help but enjoy his films--and this is one of his best. Isabelle Huppert plays a former nun who now works as a pornographer. She connects with Martin Donovan, playing a fellow who's lost his memory, but whose past may contain particularly nasty stuff. As they look for a way to get away from that past (which includes a couple of hit men who look like stockbrokers), the two discuss the meaning of their lives in hilariously vague ways. Hartley's dialogue is tart and concise, filled with acidic but low-key humor. And Donovan, who also starred in the director's equally good Trust, has just the right downbeat affect to give the film an unusual spin. --Marshall Fine
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Rating: - HAL'S NO AMATEUR1
THIS FILM IS QUIRKY GREAT!!!!
ONE OF MR.HARTLEY'S BEST!!!!
ISABELLE & MARTIN... WHAT A GREAT PAIR!
Rating: - I really wanted to like this more...
The subject matter alone drew me to this movie. Not knowing the history of the director, Hal Hartley, but knowing of his followers, I decided to check it out. In the end, I was a little disappointed. I'll talk more of this later.
The story evolves around a nun who leaves the convent because she believes that she is a nymphomaniac. But yet, she's never had sex. She decides to start writing pornographic stories for a nudie magazine to vent her sexual frustration. Soon, she meets an injured man who has amnesia. Little does the nun know, but this man has ties to the porn industry. She has a spiritual revelation and decides to help this man find out who he is. This leads them both into trouble with hired assassins and crazed accountants. A wild story indeed.
The problem I had with the film was the acting. It seemed as if the characters were just performing their lines and waiting for the director to ... Read More
Rating: - The Hartley Factor
Typically, Hartley's films are not for everyone (some might argue they're not for anyone). Still, if you've got the patience, you familiarize yourself with the style of writing, pacing and acting, you'll be rewarded. Or you could just be like me and instantly devour everything Hartley writes, shoots and films with an insatiable appetite. Whatever works for you.
This film, albeit about a ex-nun-cum-pornographer, may possess the most mainstream "feel" of any Hartley film I can think of. A first rate cast has been assembled and, without giving away anything, the story has a genuine feel of propelling itself forward in "pseudo-Hollywood" style. But it ain't Hollywood.
Living screen legend Isabelle Huppert stars as Isabelle, the fallen nun writing porno stories to pay for her humble existence while waiting reluctantly (and half awake) for some sort of sign of divine inspiration. Along ... Read More
Rating: - Who is "this man?"
"Do you know this man?" During the opening scene of AMATEUR "this man" finds himself sprawled out on a cobblestone road outside an apartment building in New York. After recovering, he'll find that his fall from a second floor window has deprived him of his memory, and in an amnesiac haze he'll stumble into a diner where a self-professed nymphomaniac ex-nun (who is still a virgin 15 years removed from the convent) and wanna-be writer of smut, will adopt him as part of what she believes to be a mission from God - her calling. The more she finds out about "this man's" unseemly past the deeper she finds herself immersed in a web of blackmail and violence, with a former porn actress and three accountants, two of which are assassins. Is "this man" the sum of all the facts that we have gleaned from others? Is "this man" really the vicious monster that his ex-wife and former business associate claim? Is "this man" the same ... Read More
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- HAL'S NO AMATEUR1
- I really wanted to like this more...
- The Hartley Factor
